A World Redone
by DarkRule
Summary: Sam and Dean investigate a claim that a young John Winchester has been spotted in California.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

Dean had a lap full of kindergarten teachers, and he wasn't complaining.

They were in Somewhere, Midwest. The third beer had gently plucked the particulars from his mind as it washed down two mediocre burgers. Sam was on the phone outside, where he'd been for a long time. Sometimes Dean saw his head going back and forth out the window. The second burger belonged to Sam, but since he wasn't coming in and the burger was going cold, Dean gave it a loving home.

The fourth beer appeared without him asking, the bartender assuming he wanted one and Dean feeling no need to quibble over that assumption. He was halfway through it when the party came in, six women enjoying their ten-year high school reunion from Somewhere. They assumed he'd graduated from there too, and ordered a shot for this new but old friend whose name they'd forgotten.

Micki was on his left knee. He thought that her name was Micki, but she might have said Minnie. That was very funny after the shot. She had extremely long hair, and her legs were even longer. On his right knee was Candy, or maybe it was Susie. She was short and plump where Micki or Minnie was long and leggy, but it was a sweet plumpness, warm and soft, soothing yet sexy. They posed for a picture together, toasted Somewhere High in Somewhere, Midwest over fresh shots, and the women walked their fingers up his chest and confessed that they didn't usually sit on strangers' laps.

"But we all went to school together," Dean protested, so they stayed because they'd been friends long ago, and wasn't he in Mr. Schuber's class? Of course he was! He sat in the back.

"Oh, I remember you now!" Candy or Susie squealed. One of them taught kindergarten _here_ and another taught kindergarten _there_, wiping little noses and reading stories about bunnies.

They asked what he did for a living, and booze made him clever. "Isn't it obvious? This is a professional Santa's lap!"

"I love Santa!" Candy or Susie cried. They giggled and bounced a little to test its professional nature. Dean was happy, the nasty kill of the day far from his mind. Micki or Minnie confessed that she'd been very naughty this year, her lower lip protruding and her big blue eyes boring into his.

The door swung open and Dean paid no attention. He had a belly full of passable burgers, there were lips smacking his cheeks and whispers about leaving out a stocking to be stuffed, his life was good, so damn _good_, and then Sam was there to ruin it.

"Dude," Sam chastised. On his forehead was the constipated furrow that meant the phone call had not gone well.

"It's Christmas!" Dean said plaintively.

"It's September, and we've got a case," Sam said.

"Ooh, but he's too tall to be your elf!" moaned Candy or Susie.

Pushing up from the stool, Dean steadied himself on the pretense of steadying them. "I've got to go. Secret Santa stuff."

"See you Christmas night," whispered Micki or Minnie, and as soon as this case was over, Dean was coming right back to this bar in Somewhere, Midwest. He walked out the door singing Jingle Bells.

Sam had to drive, which he did with a perturbed set to his lips. They cruised past the motel where they'd been planning to get a room. Watching the car get on the freeway in hazy interest, Dean said, "You know what your problem is, Sammy?"

"No. What is my problem?"

"Your brain is too full. You have to drink too much to wash it clean. Mine washes out real fast. I bet four beers in, you could still me the quadratic equation. I can't even tell you that when I'm sober. Where are we going?"

"Archimedes, California."

Dean blinked while his brain processed the information. "Tonight?"

"Dean, I just got off the phone with Garth, and he's fresh off the phone with some hunter working a vamp case about a hour north of San Francisco. He passed through Archimedes and saw . . . well, _this_." Tapping on his cell phone, he gave it over.

Dean was suddenly sober, or at least a little more so. It was a picture of a city street, stores running along the left side, and there was a man walking down the sidewalk. He was moving away from the camera, but his head was turned to the side. "That's _Dad_." It would be unbelievable if the picture weren't such a clear shot. That was Dad dead to rights! "But younger. I mean, that's a younger Dad. When was this picture taken?"

"Yesterday."

Dean stared at the man in his early thirties. "Coincidence? What else did that hunter tell Garth?"

"His case was hot, so he just snapped the picture and followed for a few minutes. That . . . that doppelganger Dad walked up the road and to an elementary school on the next block. Ronald P. Shingman Elementary School in Archimedes, California. The hunter got a better look when the guy turned at the door to look out to something. It was Dad. Then the hunter had to move on, but he sent the info along to Garth."

Widening the picture, Dean squinted as the car rolled out of Somewhere, Midwest. "It could be some relative we never heard of. Any Winchesters live in this Archimedes?"

"No. I figure we can make it in two days if we don't stop except for food and gas."

"This is all under your skin," Dean said. It was under his, too.

His brother's hands tightened on the steering wheel. "I don't like a demon walking around in Dad's form. That's messed up. And I don't see _why_. If a demon were trying to manipulate us into coming to Archimedes, wouldn't it use the form of an older Dad? You heard of any kind of demon who does that?"

He hadn't. Swallowing on the fluttering in his stomach, Dean said, "Sometimes people just look alike."

"Sometimes. And sometimes there's something else going on."

"Drive, baby, drive," Dean said, and Sam sped up.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Sometimes, they were just too late.

He expected that over time, like with dorm food, he would become inured to it. Hunting was always one more body, one more grieving family, one more hole in the ground. Sam offered his heartfelt condolences, and then moved on to the facts of the case. But this one had gotten to him, cut deep over all the scabs of their work, and from how Dean was drinking at that bar, it got to him, too.

The picture was branded in Sam's mind, those four smiling faces of a mother and her young daughters. Also branded into his mind were the wringing hands of the father in jail, the blood under his fingernails. He had no criminal record, and no idea why he'd done what he'd done. The evidence was indisputable to law enforcement. This guy was going to spend the rest of his life behind bars. The demon met an ugly end, but it was still too late for the Munroe family of Hibbon, Nebraska. Sam and Dean had been on the trail, doggedly following through three states to catch up. But while they were still miles out of town, pumping gas or grabbing a meal, it happened.

One more hour, and they would have gotten to the last girl in time. One lousy hour.

Sometimes this work really got to him, making him tired of living on the ugly side of the supernatural railroad tracks. Through the day as Dean drove, Sam dreamed over and over of a little white hand reaching up in desperation from a precipice. Every time he dove to the ground and lashed out to take hold, the hand slipped from his grasp.

That was just reality, he woke up thinking. But that didn't make it any less hard.

They reached Archimedes by nightfall and got a room at the Starshine Motel. It looked like a normal place from the outside, but once in the room with the lights off, the ceiling began to glow. The establishment had put at least five hundred star stickers up there, with comets circling the darkened lights. Right over his head was a spiral galaxy shining down. On his bed, Dean was looking up in delight. "I got aliens." Sam put the pillow over his head to sleep.

The hand slipped away. _I'm sorry._

In the morning, he caught up on the particulars of Archimedes with the laptop while his brother picked up the free breakfast from the lobby. A population of fifty thousand, it was a middle-class suburban community based around a river. Parks and schools, a low crime rate and a bustling downtown that boasted a brand new theater, there wasn't one snippet of paranormal activity reported in the news. The vampire had just passed through here without doing damage on its way south.

Sam looked at the picture on his phone. _Dad._ Maybe it was bugging him how nothing, absolutely _nothing_ was sacred. Not even an image of his father from ages ago. Returning to the news, he flipped back through local crime archives. Petty thefts. Drug sales. Graffiti. DUIs. Streaking. Widening his search to include other communities in the area, he was unrewarded. Nothing had ever happened here, nothing _was_ happening here, and yet Sam was here.

"This place is awesome," Dean said without preamble when he returned with a loaded tray of food. "You see this? They have an actual kitchen in there making real food. I got us fresh omelets, so fresh the chickens farted out the eggs just this morning."

"Appetizing," Sam said, but then he bit into the freshly farted omelet, packed with cheese and ham, and it was fantastic.

"Uh-huh?" Dean nodded with his mouth full, already halfway through his own.

Ronald P. Shingman Elementary School was just past the downtown. They started first on the street where the picture had been snapped, with Dad walking past a boutique. Sam stood on the approximate spot and looked out to the road the way the image of his father looked. A theater was directly across. Movie posters lined the walls, and maybe the one that had caught Dad's eye was the one with an iridescent blue dragon roaring fire down on Planet Earth. Every flash of light from the street made it twinkle. Passerby skirted them as Dean turned around and around to gauge this place. "You must have found something online."

"Nothing," Sam said, deciding that it was likely the poster to have gotten their father's attention. The people walking around them were looking at it, too. "Biggest crime committed in the last six months was some dude streaking through a park playground. He tripped on a sprinkler and a bunch of outraged mothers dog-piled him."

Dean snorted. "Not just anyone can streak. You either have the talent or you don't."

"I don't want to know," Sam said. In his head, the little hand slipped from his.

They walked down to the school. Cars were lined up at the curb, children shouting and running over the lawn with backpacks bouncing on their shoulders. Sam checked his watch. It was a little after one. These kids got out early. A boy tripped and fell right in front of them on the walkway.

"You show gravity who's boss!" another boy cheered. The one on the concrete scrambled up with a laugh and ran after his friend.

Letting themselves into the main building, Sam and Dean looked down long hallways on either side. There weren't any signs for the office, or maybe they were covered up by the profusion of artwork on the walls. Attached to ropes from the ceiling were giant papier-mâché dragons and sea creatures.

"You think they got candy inside?" Dean whispered.

"Focus, Dean," Sam said. "We need to find the office."

They picked a hallway and started down. The windows in the doors showed only empty classrooms beyond. Just as Sam was convincing himself that this was an innocent coincidence, a woman called brightly behind them, "May I help you?"

"Hi, we're looking for the office," Sam explained. She was in her twenties and very attractive, black hair swept back on one side with a flower clip. In his peripheral vision, Dean brightened.

She looked their suits up and down, her eyes lingering on Dean. "Well, silly-willies, you're going the wrong way! Whose father are you?"

"Oh," Dean said hastily, and flashed his fake FBI badge.

The woman's eyes widened. "Is there a problem?"

"No, we don't think so," Sam rushed to say. She dragged her eyes away from Dean and looked at Sam in concern. "We're investigating a case and we're just trying to track down a potential witness. You wouldn't happen to know this man, would you?" He showed her the picture of Dad.

"Of course I know him! That's Abe Shiner. He's the father of Torin and Tibalt." She turned and they followed her down the hallway. Once past the entry, she glanced through a classroom window and said, "The office is at the far end of this hall, but Tibalt's kindergarten teacher is in here right now if you want to speak to her."

"Sure," Dean agreed. As she opened the door, he rubbed his hands together and whispered, "I love kindergarten teachers."

Sam chuckled inwardly when they walked inside not to a slinky minx in a little black dress but a very stout woman in her sixties. Her massive chest was encased in a floral print blouse with a blue sweater stretched tightly over it. A stack of green folders was riding on her hip. Looking at their badges more keenly than the other woman, she said in no good humor, "Just what is this about?"

"I'm Federal Agent Quad and this is Federal Agent Ratic," Dean bluffed. The board read _Mrs. Mellinger_ in precise print. "We received information that a parent at this school might have been a witness to a crime we're investigating. The name is Abe Shiner."

"He's not involved. Only as a possible witness," Sam said, since the woman looked as affronted by this information as if Dean had accused her personally.

"Of course he's not involved! I wouldn't believe it if you said he was," Mrs. Mellinger said tartly, her eyes narrowing on Dean in dislike. "All right, Julia, I'll take it from here." Thus dismissed, the second woman slunk out the door.

"I've afraid we can't discuss the details of the case," Sam said, "but could you tell us a little about this man?"

"Pass these out, one per seat," Mrs. Mellinger said, pressing the green folders to Dean. He looked down in surprise and then obeyed.

Beckoning to Sam, the teacher walked through the round tables to the big desk in the front corner of the room. Her finger lowered and he sat in the chair by her desk while Dean passed out folders. Falling into her seat with a huff, she sorted stacks of dittoes briskly. "Abe Shiner is an asset to this school and this community. Everyone knows him, and everyone loves him. Our budget's next to nothing and he's here once a week mowing the lawn and trimming the hedges, fixing up whatever is broken. Volunteers to drive for field trips, donates snacks every month, and when our computer lab was broken into last year, he organized a big pancake breakfast over at the park and raised the money to replace what was stolen. His wife Holly comes in every Tuesday and Thursday morning to help out in the library. Both of them lead hikes through the local wilderness preserves on the weekends. They're good people."

"I'm done," Dean said about the folders, looking almost nervous. Pulling out dittoes of butterflies, Mrs. Mellinger extended them over the desk with a pair of scissors.

"There, you can cut those out next," she said sternly.

"Yes, ma'am," Dean said.

He started to walk away and she said, "No! How do we hold scissors?"

"Oh, sorry," Dean said, and turned them so the point faced down to the floor. Giving Sam a look of concern, he sat in one of the little chairs and began to snip.

Mrs. Mellinger looked back to Sam. "So I don't know what you think Abe is mixed up in, but he isn't. He owns the mechanic shop down on Third Street. His sons are adorable. Torin is in the fourth grade now. I had him, just a smile a minute, that boy, friends with everyone, and I have Tibalt now. He's a thinker, and smart as a whip. Much brighter than Torin, but much more serious. In a few years I'll have their sister Cassidy. I always smile to see a Shiner on my attendance in the autumn. Beautiful manners and a beautiful family!"

Opening her desk drawer with indignation, Mrs. Mellinger withdrew a ledger. "Now, if you'll excuse me, we have a staff development meeting this afternoon, and I'm tardy for it. Once you're done with the butterflies, just put them on my desk, Agent. Good day." She went to the door and looked back, out through the window to the front lawn of the school. "And there they are now! That's Holly Shiner's car, and there are the boys running over to get in." The door closed behind her.

Sam and Dean stepped to the window and looked out. Both froze. Two boys were sprinting over the grass to a pretty blonde woman leaning down with her arms extended for a hug. Thickly, Dean said, "Mom."

"Is that _us_?" Sam asked about the boys. He didn't know what to think, but under the confusion was anger. The boys got into the minivan, their faces wiped out by snippets of sunlight reflecting off the glass. The woman got into the driver's seat as Dean opened the window and dropped outside. Sam followed, regretting that the car was two blocks away. The minivan pulled out from the curb and went north to the stop sign, where it paused and turned west.

"Okay, this is ten kinds of messed up!" Dean exploded. "I just watched _myself _get into a car with my _mom_, and-"

"We have to get their address," Sam said, already typing Abe and Holly Shiner into his cell phone. The address came up without delay. "406 Bellchimes Road, Archimedes."

Sprinting back to the car with his brother, Sam sank into the seat and gave directions to the address a mile away. They wound through roads of sweet suburban homes with cut grass and flowerbeds. Driving over the speed limit, they spotted the minivan just as it turned onto Bellchimes Road. Dean slowed down and eased onto the road, pulling over at once as the minivan turned into a driveway of a lovely, two-story home with white trim. The doors in the back of the minivan opened and the boys pelted out and up to the porch, where Dad was coming out with a blonde baby in his arm.

It was indisputably _them_, Sam and Dean as little boys. And equally indisputable were their parents. The baby sister they had never had toddled about the yard in a red sundress, picking up colorful plastic balls and bringing them to her brothers as they played catch with their father. Mom was in the house, sporadically visible through one of the windows on the first floor.

There was nothing wrong about this scene, just a family enjoying the afternoon, except that it was _their_ family. As they'd never existed. Not in time, not in this place, yet there they were. Sam and Dean watched until everyone went inside. Then Dean pulled the car around to park on the other side of the street to get a better view. Beyond the big windows was a dining room, and their family gathered around it for dinner.

The baby was put to bed. Dad did the dishes. The boys thundered through the house and Mom yelled at them to quit acting like a herd of elephants. An extremely fat red cat jumped into a window on the second floor and surveyed its domain below. It wasn't until darkness had fallen that Sam realized how much he needed to stretch his legs. "We should go."

"We should figure out what's going on!" Dean spat.

"Tomorrow. Mrs. Mellinger said that Mom . . . Holly helps out at the library in the morning. I assume the baby goes to a sitter. Abe will be at work, the boys at school. The house should be empty."

"We should march in there right now and-"

"And what?" Sam interrupted. "That's _us_, but it's not. It's just the Shiner family of Archimedes."

They picked up some food and went back to the motel, where Dean drank beer and watched television while Sam researched for hours about what could possibly be causing this phenomenon. A phone call with Garth illuminated zilch, and Sam put down the phone in defeat. "He thought it might be a ghostly memory brought to life by some means, except these aren't _our_ memories. Then he suggested a ground memory, where a traumatic event saturates the earth with its energy, but we never lived here. So he's stumped."

"We looked happy," Dean said. "Like that's what we should have had, that life. It's a fantasy."

"We'll check out the house tomorrow."

"You check out the house. I'm going to the mechanic shop."

Sam tapped his fingers on the table, not sure that that was smart. "We don't know what we're dealing with yet."

"I don't care," his brother responded, eyes dark upon his beer. "I'm going."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

In the morning, Dean tested that frightening kindergarten teacher's declaration that everyone knew and loved Abe Shiner. While waiting for his omelets from the grizzled cook working in the kitchen, Dean said, "Hey, do you know a guy named Abe Shiner?"

"Sure I know him!" the guy rumbled, slapping fried potatoes over with a spatula.

"How long has he lived in Archimedes?"

"Oh, forever. His wife and my wife had girls the same day in the hospital, that's how we met. We came up here from San Francisco. Nice fella, Abe."

Potatoes sizzled as he scooped them onto a plate. The omelets were already on the tray, stuffed with cheese and bacon bits this morning. Meditatively, the cook said, "You know, Abe's the kind of guy who makes you feel bad."

That was interesting. "Feel bad how?"

"For not doing anything. He lives for others, get me? If something needs doing, he's there doing it. He doesn't sit back and wait for someone else to take charge. You heard about the computer theft at the school and his pancake breakfast? Yeah, that's Abe, righting the world's wrongs. There we were at six a.m. getting ready to make pancakes in the park. I wouldn't have done it on my own, said that was sad about the thefts and gone on with my day. But you look at Abe and feel bad for how you always put yourself first. And his wife is a sweetheart, called my wife to check on her after the girls were born. Shelly's our first kid."

After breakfast, which was just as perfect as the day before, Dean dropped Sam off at the car rental agency and they went their separate ways. Dean wanted to see this paragon of virtue for himself, and ask why exactly this guy happened to be the very image of his father. On the pretense of needing new windshield wipers, he bought a pack from the automotive shop and drove over to Third.

The shop was neat, with rock music playing at a good but not intrusive level. Dad was nowhere to be seen, although another man was bent over a car. The girl behind the counter in the office said Dean had to make an appointment for tomorrow, since the shop was full up today. The door behind her opened and a familiar voice called, "It's okay, Becky! Just windshield wipers will take all of a minute."

"You're in luck," the girl said to Dean, and _Dad_ walked out behind the counter. He smiled without recognition, Dean a total stranger to him.

"Come on, wipers are easy. I'll show you how, and then you won't need a mechanic for that," Dad said. His voice, his face, his mannerisms, his _everything_, except it wasn't.

"I'm just not real good with my hands," Dean said, feeling winded.

"It's not playing the harp, man." The demon currently in his father's young form laughed as they walked out of the shop to the parking lot. Dad stopped and said in admiration, "Well, that's a beaut of a car!"

"Thanks."

"You new in town? I would have noticed wheels like this around the streets of Archimedes."

"I'm just here for a little while." Dean reached in for the package of wipers as Dad propped up the ones on the window.

"Okay, so first you take these off, and be careful since they're made of metal and you don't want to scratch the glass of your windshield. There should be a small tab on the underside, see this here?" Dad asked. Dean nodded, feeling like a fool. An angry, upset, stomach-churning fool who didn't like some demon touching his baby. "Depress that tab and slide the wiper off the arm. Then place the arms gently back against the windows as we ready your wipers. Don't want them snapping back and hitting the glass. They're spring-loaded." He walked Dean through the rest of it, Dean nodding and nodding, and then told him to try the second one on his own.

Dean pretended to fumble a little, but got the wiper on without too much trouble. Clapping him on the back, Dad said, "See? Nothing to it. Worry about your hands when life gives you a harp, not windshield wipers."

"What do I owe you?" Dean asked.

"Nothing, man. You just go and have yourself a good day." Dad walked back to the shop, calling to the girl in the office.

Dean called Sam, impatient for an explanation. The second the phone was picked up, he demanded, "What did you find, Sam?" Getting into his car, he started it up.

"A very protective cat," Sam hissed. "I had to shut it in the laundry room just now to get it to stop attacking me. How's it going on your end?"

Deciding to drive over and join his brother, Dean pulled out of the lot. It was less than a mile across town. "A nice, normal conversation with a man who can't exist. Didn't even charge me for labor."

"And this is a nice, normal house," Sam answered. "Alphabet magnets on the fridge, big family portraits on the walls, framed pictures everywhere, no EMF readings. What I don't see . . . that's interesting."

"What?" When Sam didn't answer, Dean said, "Speak to me, Sammy."

"Grandparents. I don't see our grandparents in any pictures, or any other relatives at all. It's just the five of them, over and over. And the cat." Something rumbled around. "No guns in the closet, no knives, this is all so _normal_."

By the time Dean arrived at the house on Bellchimes and let himself in, his brother was coming down the stairs with a shake of his head. "Dean, something's messing with us."

The house was as Sam described, utterly regular. Dean took it in and Sam said, "What is the_ point_ of this?"

Sneezing, Dean went into the kitchen and opened the door of the fridge. No jugs of blood, jars of body parts, no human head under the tin foil, it was bottles for the baby, thawing pork chops and a crisper full of vegetables. Sunlight streamed in through the window over the sink, a line of toy turtles on the sill. The cat yowled from the laundry room. "Think Tubby in there is some kind of demon?"

"Tubby's just a cat," Sam said, reading the notes on the calendar. There were scratches on his arm.

"Then why am I . . . why is that kid not sneezing? He should be red-eyed and sneezing." Dean pointed to a picture of himself as a child, the cat tightly squeezed in his arms.

Sam's eyes widened. "You should be. If that little boy is really you, this family shouldn't have a cat for a pet."

"Where does that door go?" Dean asked about the one by the back entrance. It was child-locked. Sam shook his head, not having tried it yet.

A staircase led down into darkness. Dean flipped the switch and they descended the flight of creaking stairs. The cellar was packed with boxes of holiday decorations, old toys and clothes, and filing cabinets. There was a desk against one wall, set up to be a home office. Sam went to explore it as Dean walked around the boxes to check out the other end of the room.

More boxes, old furniture, a broken cat carrier . . . there was a sheet over some other piece of furniture, which he pulled off. Atop an end table was a long, dark metal box. Along the crack of lid to base, it was glowing blue. "Sam?"

Sam was there in a shot. "What is_ that_?"

"Maybe an answer," Dean said, and opened the lid. The glow was coming from a curved blade inside, a blade that he recognized from long, long ago. "That's Dad's!"

"It is? Are you sure?"

"Yeah." Except the blade hadn't glowed blue back then. Dean pulled it out of the box and held it up for a better look. "See the phoenix carved on the handle, the little flecks of obsidian in its feathers? This is even chipped exactly how Dad's was at the base! He used this on a case when we were boys."

"I don't remember," Sam said.

"You were little. A long case, six months of chasing a dark witch killing people for the organs she needed for spells to gain more power. Once she learned we were after her, she started coming after us. Dad had this strapped to his waist even when he slept. But why is it blue now?"

Sam held out his hand to inspect the blade. "No symbols. So how did this knife end up here?"

"I don't know . . ." Dean trailed off, trying to remember. The type of witch had had a weird name. "It was in California, but not this far north. I think we were somewhere on the peninsula. He stabbed her with it. She ran off wounded into the woods with this blade stuck in her gut and he lost track of her. We stayed in that area for weeks while he hunted, but he never picked up the trail again and the killings stopped. He didn't know if she died or if she just relocated so far away that he couldn't find her. It made him nuts wondering."

"We should get back to the motel and research this," Sam said. They returned up the stairs, freed Tubby, and were chased to the door by the morbidly obese and furious creature. As they went down the porch stairs, the cat leaped into a window and glared. God, Dean hated cats.

They walked past the lawn, sprinkled with toys, and down the steps to the sidewalk. Dean stopped there to look around Bellchimes, and Sam gasped. Turning, Dean's mouth dropped.

The house was gone, the toys on the lawn, the cat in the window, everything. In its place was the hulking wreckage of a burned home. The second floor had been entirely gutted by a fire, with only one corner still standing in testimony that there had ever been a second story to this house. The first floor was not in much better condition, some of the walls remaining but everything scorched inside. The attached garage had also been destroyed, all but the farthest edge of it.

Something caught Dean's eye. "Sam, the blade isn't glowing."

Sam lifted it. Hesitantly, he held it out over the steps going up to the walkway. The moment the blade passed the boundary of sidewalk to steps, the lovely house returned. The fat red cat was still there in the window, looking like he was debating whether evisceration or decapitation was a more suiting punishment for the intruders in his kingdom.

The blade was glowing blue. Sam pulled it back to hover over the sidewalk and the burned house reappeared. "This is an illusion."

A bicyclist rolled by, showing no interest in the changing house. Dean had had it with this whole stupid case. "Let's go back to the motel. Even _I'm_ going to research."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

"No, it's not doing anything!" Dean was exclaiming into his cell while Sam waited for his screen to load. A half hour of intense work had been enough to send Dean to the phone to call Garth. "Look, this knife was created by a spell about twenty-five years ago, and it's only purpose was to bring down a . . . a what did you call it?"

"A gorumai witch," Sam said absently.

"A gorum, a gollum witch, something like that. She was working very advanced magic to ascend to some new level of bad assed-ness and this blade was her only weak spot. Dad poked her with it and she ran off, never to be seen again-"

The Starshine Motel had incredible breakfasts, but the galaxies on the ceiling were annoying at night and the Internet connection could be improved. Tired of waiting, Sam reloaded and stared at the phoenix on the knife. He did not remember it, or that case, no matter how he picked at his memory.

Being in that house had made him sad. It was the pictures mostly, and the bedroom that belonged to young Tibalt. There were so many books, and even a little rolling ladder so the boy could reach the top shelf of them. He was reading above his grade level, as Sam once had. This was a room Sam would have loved to have had as a child, a beanbag for reading, an easel in the corner with an old sheet beneath it to catch drips, a wall painted to look like the inside of an aquarium.

"-that's just it!" Dean said. "The spell gave it one use, Garth. One. It was specifically treated so that no spell of hers could influence it, or warp its purpose. There is no dark magic strong enough to override the spell on this knife-"

The screen loaded, and Sam looked at a black-and-white picture of the destroyed house at 406 Bellchimes. It was an article from three years ago. He motioned to Dean, who kept talking but looked over Sam's shoulder to the laptop. One person had died in the fire, a woman in her forties named Marjorie Bennett. She was an invalid, having had a stroke ten years before the house burned down. A pet cat also died. A caretaker escaped the fire, which she'd started by accident upstairs when she dozed off with a cigarette. Marjorie Bennett had been married to a man named George, and the article said he was devastated. They had had no children.

Sam searched for George Bennett, but there was no further mention of him in the local paper. There wasn't a mention of him anywhere. Hanging up, Dean said, "When did the Shiners move in there?"

"Just a sec," Sam said, tapping away. "Okay, so the house burned down in March of three years ago. The Shiners moved in . . . I can't find anything about the Shiners. The burned up house still belongs to George Bennett."

"Maybe the Shiners only exist when the knife is on that property?" Dean guessed. "Well, Garth is looking, but he's stumped. The kicker is that this isn't _bothering_ anyone."

"Except what happened to George Bennett?" Sam asked.

"So you think the Shiners are some happy demon family, who charmed Dad's old knife, snuffed the real owner somehow, and moved into that house?"

"What need was there to kill him? He couldn't have lived in that house after the fire." Sam picked up the knife and inspected it for symbols. But it was just that, a knife with a phoenix on the handle. Searching _knife glows blue_ on the Internet, the results were Lord of the Rings and articles about algae. Putting it into specifically demon-related paranormal search engines gave him nothing. Black glowing knives, red glowing knives, green and purple . . . the only blue one made the handle glow that color, not the blade.

"I'm going out," Dean said. "See if that mechanic shop is still there."

While he did, Sam continued to search. Nothing on blue knives or the Shiner family, and in time he returned to the Bennetts. There was little online. George and his wife had moved into the house more than twenty years ago. She worked for several years after the move as a librarian. Delving deep into the Internet, Sam unearthed that she worked specifically at Ronald P. Shingman Elementary School. Then Marjorie fell off the radar altogether. Maybe that was when she had her stroke. George was a mechanic. Pausing, Sam read that a second time. What were the odds that Abe Shiner happened to have the same profession, and Holly volunteered in the library at the same school where Marjorie Bennett once worked?

His phone rang, Dean saying, "They don't exist. The mechanic shop is a building with nothing in it. My wipers are still new though. The kids are no longer in school, and their teachers don't remember them. However, the new computers are still in the lab. And I caught up with the cook on my way out, you know, the one who makes us those omelets? Never heard of the Shiners."

A beep interrupted his last word. Sam said, "That's Garth on the other line. I'll call you back."

Garth was excited, as he always was. "I got a scrap in this book here. _The symbol blue is shine of dreams_. There's not a symbol on that knife because the color_ is_ the symbol."

"So what's causing that?" Sam asked.

"A revasserie!" Garth enthused. "They wield old, old, _old_ magic. Kinda sounds like rotisserie, huh? A revasserie is a spirit. They're real uncommon. There isn't a clear definition of what they do or why they do it, but they're in the section on those who play with human minds."

"Are they dangerous?"

"I don't know. Like I said, there's just this scrap. It's in a chapter about spirits we don't know much about. Some of the spirits on the other pages are dangerous, but I can't tell you much more about this one. They're fortunetellers, or got something to do with fortune. That's all the rest I got."

Sam tried to string the information together, but it still didn't make any sense. "So it's playing with our minds? But this isn't a fortune of any of ours."

"Well, I'd start looking at the woo-woo people in that area. Maybe you'll sniff the revasserie out there. Damn, I keep wanting to call it rotisserie! Like rotisserie chicken. Tread lightly, man, if this spirit is anything like the ones in the rest of this chapter, it's heavyweight on the power."

"Any idea of how to kill it?"

"Not a clue. I'll keep looking. This is a cool book. I know what I'm going to be reading tonight!"

"Thanks, Garth," Sam said, and hung up. Pulling over a pad of paper, he drew up a list of every New Age store and fortune practitioner in the area. There was an ungodly amount of them in Archimedes and the surrounding cities. Figuring that since this phenomenon was happening in Archimedes, they should investigate it first, he narrowed down the list to the local palm readers, astrologers, dream analysts, aura gazers, and a store called Energetic Release.

Tomorrow was going to be footwork around this city, not sure of exactly what they were looking for, or what to do once they found it. Sam didn't like that. But the world didn't go how he liked it, or they would have gotten to that last little Munroe girl in time to save her. So much would not have happened in his life, if life was forced to go the way he liked it.

Looking up to the star-filled ceiling, he wondered what that other Sam would be doing right now.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

There was the supernatural of this world, and then there was the woo-woo. It was an easy way to make a buck, which he didn't begrudge anyone, but he also didn't understand the desperation that made so many people line up to be suckers. Madam Zelda or Aurora with the flowing gowns and shuffling cards were usually named Betty or Doris in real life, and supplementing their income the savvy way by telling anyone whatever he or she wanted to hear. Yes, true love is coming. Yes, that job is on its way. Yes, you are a very old soul.

No one ever wanted to be a new soul. He thought about that while going in for a Tarot reading. It was his turn, Sam having sat for two palm readings and an aura gazing, and they were going to flip a coin for the dream analyst. The local astrologer was on vacation, his voicemail stating that the stars had aligned just right to tour wineries in France. Dean's money was riding on the dream analyst, if it had to ride on anyone, but he wasn't holding out much hope.

Around the fourth finger of his right hand was a silver ring. Garth had called at three in the morning, wide awake from pounding coffee, and relayed that the spirits in the rest of the chapter disliked silver. If it hurt or killed them he didn't know, but in its presence, they struggled to maintain a human façade.

Not a meat suit, Garth hastened to explain. These spirits weren't leaping from body to body. They put up a façade of one. Dean yawned and nodded and yawned, and fell back into a dead sleep. He didn't even remember the details of the call until he was eating another one of the best damn omelets ever made. The cook for this dinky motel had a serious talent, whether he remembered Abe Shiner or not. Dean ran the name George Bennett past his ears and got no reaction. When asked about a fire, the cook hesitated and said that he'd heard something about a fire burning down a house locally and killing a woman. But that was long ago, and he wasn't interested in the details.

So they had silver rings, silver bullets loaded in the gun, silver-tipped arrows for the crossbow, knives inlaid with silver, and just had to find the spirit who found some sick joy in recreating a family that was both long gone and never existed.

This lady was Madam Electra, a blowsy woman in a mauve dress that trailed on the floor. He shook her hand, pressing the silver to her fingers, and she stayed the same. For ten dollars, he got to ask one question of the cards. "Why do I feel like I've been here before?" He asked that because it was his third Tarot reading in three hours.

"You are a very old soul," Madam Electra soothed. Yeah, he was going to find his trick coin in the back with heads on both sides and make Sam see the dream analyst. Dean didn't even remember much of his dreams, although last night's had included some kindergarten teachers. Not Mrs. Mellinger, thank God. That would have been a nightmare.

"No dice," he said when he got back into the car.

"The dream analyst had to reschedule for four," Sam said. "He seemed sincere, not evasive. His dog has to go to the vet."

"Then let's try this Energetic Release," Dean said. They drove across town to a deserted square with shops on the first floor and nice apartments on the second. The New Age store was at the far end. Filmy white curtains hung in the windows around towering displays of pinkish crystal balls and fancy astrology books entitled _Heart Signs. _Fat little stuffed cupids hung on strings over them, attached to a motor that made them whirl around in a circle.

Thinking that he didn't want to go in there either, Dean said, "Your turn."

"All right, then you can read this page Garth sent," said Sam over his phone.

Damn. Dean got out of the car and went inside. Bells jingled overhead. The shop was a strange mix of New Age and Valentine's Day, the display tables covered in cloths of red, pink, and white. Against a wall was a giant diagram of a hand, _Find Love In Your Palm_ written on the top and arrows pointing to the lines of the hand for amateur readers.

No one was behind the counter, nor was anyone shopping among the aisles. He wandered around, noting a very complete apothecary in the jars behind the cash register. A feminine voice was coming from beyond a curtain to the back, sounding like she was on the phone taking an order. Dean glanced out to the car and glared, as his brother was currently looking out the window with the phone forgotten in his hand.

A curtain rattled. "Can I help you?"

Dean turned around and startled to see the young woman's blue hair. Gold rings ran up her ears and tattoos of red hearts twined out of the sleeves of her tight T-shirt. The hearts spiraled down her arms to her wrists. She walked behind the counter and smiled a little flirtatiously. "Are you here for the Suckers for Romance meeting? I'm so sorry, that was a mistake on the flyer. It doesn't start until five this evening."

The hair color could be a coincidence, so he extended a hand and turned up the charm. "Hi, I'm Tom! Actually, I was wondering where I could go to get my palm read-"

As the silver ring touched her skin, she dematerialized. It was just for a split second, the time it took for her to jerk away from his grip. In that split second he had the knife in his hand. Smile changing to a scowl, she flicked her fingers and he soared away, across the shop and through the window. Crashing to the walkway amidst a pile of astrology books, he heard a surprised cry from within the car. Then Sam was charging forward with the gun, through the broken window with Dean on his heels.

A table with a candle display flew their way, both of them diving down as it crashed into the closed door and broke into pieces. Athames shot through a glass counter and rained down, the dull blades landing with such force that they buried themselves in the carpet and the hard floor beneath it. One landed a centimeter from Dean's hand, others around his knees, and one a breath from his nose. She was missing him on purpose.

Sam took aim and shot. But the bullet slowed and evanesced before striking the revasserie spirit, who was strolling back to the curtain. Scoffing at the attempt, she said, "Leave while you still can, boys!"

"Did you give George Bennett that offer?" Dean shouted. She looked at him in pure astonishment and swept out her arm. Picked right off the floor, they crashed into the apothecary on the shelves. Glass shattered, Dean's head struck the wall, and he knew nothing more.

"_-nothing would give me greater happiness than . . . than if you would be my wife!"_

"_Oh, Mark!"_

"_Is that a yes?"_

"_Of course it's a yes!"_

Someone sighed. Dean opened his eyes.

It was a living room. To his left side was a solid wall of DVDs from ceiling to floor, packed with every chick flick and Jennifer Aniston rom-com ever produced. Each shelf was lined with pink doilies, which hung over the sides. More movies were scattered on a dark pink pouf, and thin scarves muted the light from the lamps. He turned his head, realizing that his arms and legs were tied to a chair, and that his shoes were gone. In their place were slippers. Fuzzy bunny slippers, to be exact.

Sam was unconscious on a second chair across the room. There was a pink bandage on his forehead. Between them was a golden sofa with a flowery throw over the back. The blue-haired revasserie was touching a kerchief to her eyes as a joyous movie couple embraced on the television screen. The credits began to roll. Dean blinked. He hadn't known what he was expecting, but this wasn't it.

On the coffee table was Dad's knife. Struggling with the bonds, Dean put together that there was no rope. Or it was invisible. He simply couldn't get free of this chair. Grunting, he squirmed. The spirit lowered the kerchief and said with one blue eyebrow raised, "So, did the world run out of demons or something?"

"Excuse me?" Dean asked. Sam jerked and woke up.

"Or are you two just psychopaths, looking for the thrill of killing anything and anyone that isn't like you?" the woman mused. Their wallets were on the table by the knife. "The Winchesters. I've heard of you here and there, and I thought better."

Dean thrashed. "We gank demons for killing humans, and unless you'd like to produce George Bennett right now, or tell us a little about this weird Abe Shiner-"

"Fool, Abe Shiner _is_ George Bennett!"

"Then tell me why Abe Shiner looks exactly like our father!" Sam said, writhing in his invisible bindings.

"Because he gave me a totem with memories more resonant to your father than himself! It was a mistake." Turning off the television, she sighed and flicked her hands. The bindings disappeared. Dean lurched up and her eyebrow rose a second time.

Their weapons were gone, not that they could do any good. The focus right now had to be on escape, and coming back later with better ammo. As he and Sam looked at one another, unsure of what to do, the revasserie patted the sofa at her sides. When neither moved to take a seat, she motioned her fingers. They walked over against their will and sat down.

Then she smiled like they were friends. "All right, why don't we start all of this over? My name is Cherie."

"What do you mean, Abe and George are the same? Did they ever know each other?" Sam asked.

"Only through this knife." The phoenix knife rose on its own, without even her fingers to guide it. They tensed, but it floated over to the television and tapped on the screen.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

"Take care of him," Dad barked. The phoenix knife was strapped to his waist. A very young Sam was in bed and already asleep, the covers tucked under his chin. Dean looked up, scared of this hotel with the scratching in the walls, but not wanting Dad to know. He nodded obediently.

The adult Sam watched this scene play out, both on the sofa and within the hotel room as a translucent presence. The sight of the room did not spur any memories. But he saw now what he could not have seen as a child, that his father's bark was angry yet his eyes were nervous. And though Dean, who was both on the other side of the revasserie and also a translucent presence by Sam in the room, had not said anything about the scratches making him afraid on that long ago night, Sam knew it with certainty. The knowledge was just there in his head. The scratching was only rodents, but it sounded all too much like fingernails dragging down the other side of the walls.

_This stops tonight_. That was Dad's thought as he walked out the door, a hand on the knife. Six months of bodies in pieces, of this witch sending every manner of spell after the Winchesters, and he was done with it. Done. The incantation he whispered to the knife was always the same, but the spell strengthened with every repeat. He even whispered it in his dreams after this long. She could not corrupt its purpose. It looked like nothing, just a knife with a neat carving on the handle, but this was a blade of fire.

Dad was walking down a street under a full moon. At an alley he turned in, hoping that Dean was lining the room with salt as he'd learned. For a second, Sam was jerked back to the hotel room, where Dean was doing exactly that. Little Sam slept on, oblivious.

Through the alley and across another street . . . the power of the knife was so strong now that it was leading Dad to the witch. He followed a faint green trail through a park and onto a bike path, which wended through a wilderness of looming trees and eroded hillsides. All was quiet, but he smelled blood.

She was at her weakest in the moments directly after a kill. It did not last long, and he could not prevent this last death. He needed it to happen to bring this to a close. But as he stepped into a clearing and saw the boy in blue pajama bottoms sprawled in the grass, his chest open and his blood seeping away, Dad's heart beat once in regret for him. That was a boy no bigger than the son sleeping in his bed at the hotel. The boy's eyes were frozen open in terror, his mouth agape, and the gorumai was embracing his heart in her hands as she called out the words of her rite. She was on her knees, blood running down her arms, and Dad charged for himself, for his sons, for this son dead in the grass. He ran for all of them and the gorumai leaped up to fight.

They traded hard blows. She was too weak for her spells to summon the trees against him, to conjure a ghost or rally any demons around in her defense. All she had was herself in these precious moments, and a desperate desire to live. But Dad's desire was stronger, and he stabbed her in the stomach when she tried to flee. Her magic rose weakly in a slap of wind that knocked him aside. By the time he rose, she was no longer in the clearing, nor could he hear her crashing away through the brush.

_Whose perspective is this?_ Sam wondered as he dipped into the blackness where the gorumai had gone. It transcended one view to all of them, and now it was the witch's anger and fear throbbing in his mind. At the side of a river, she fell to her knees and yanked out the knife. It slipped from her hand and dropped into the water, and slowly, slowly she turned to ash. The wind scattered her over the trees.

The sky lightened to morning, and Dad walked this same ground in hunt. The blood she'd trailed to the river had changed to ashes too, leaving him nothing to follow. He did not see the knife in the water.

While the sun and moon traded places overhead, Cherie's voice came from the sky. "John Winchester imprinted his emotional energy heavily on that knife. As did both of you, simply from being so close to it in a highly-charged time of your lives."

"How did it come into George Bennett's possession?" Sam asked, suddenly back in his body on the sofa. The television screen changed to a young man and woman walking by the river. The man was carrying a trash bag, and both were picking up discarded soda cans and food wrappers. The woman spotted the knife and pulled it out to drip on the grass.

"That was one of their first dates, and they married not long after it," the revasserie said as the couple walked away and took the knife with them. "Sometimes, it's just right. George and Marjorie were such good people, and good for each other. They bought a home in Archimedes, planning to raise a family here. But she had a stroke in the second trimester of her pregnancy. The baby couldn't be saved. Marjorie survived, but her health was permanently and severely compromised. And that man took care of her, day in and day out, year after year after year, and he did it with a smile. On Saturdays, he'd be here at the square to pick up her favorite gelato. That was how I got to know George. I visited their home and met Marjorie. Thin and bedridden, in pain and struggling to speak, but how she glowed to see her husband come into the room. Even in the most terrible time, they loved each other like nothing else."

"And then the fire," Sam said. The beautiful house appeared on the screen, and in seconds, turned into the wreck he and Dean saw when the knife was taken from the property. George paced the sidewalk, his fingers entwined in his hair and tears running down his cheeks.

"A horrible accident. He was distraught. So I . . ." the revasserie paused. "I do not usually involve myself. The forces of Heaven and Hell war on and on through the millennia, and rarely do those of my kind step in. It is not our war. Whoever wins shall wield no power over us. Demons may tread on the borders of my land, but they do not linger. They do not know why, but they feel a push to move on. The forces of Heaven feel the same push. This is _my_ ground. Nor do I involve myself in human affairs much. But with George . . . I told him to bring me something of meaning, of emotional resonance to his relationship. Yet there was a problem."

Sam knew the problem. "He had just lost everything but the clothes on his back."

"Those, and this knife tucked away in the one corner of their garage that wasn't burned to ash. Even his wedding ring was destroyed, because he didn't like to wear that at work. He brought this knife to me, a memento of one of his first hikes with the woman to be his wife."

"It doesn't sound so resonant if it was in the garage," Dean said.

"So what we're seeing in Abe Shiner is a mixture of Dad's energy and George's?" Sam asked.

"Your father's energy, _your_ energy, was much more resonant than the Bennetts' in the knife. I didn't know this when I cast the spell to give George the life that he and his wife should have had. So he took your father's physical form, instead of a slightly adjusted version of his own. But in some ways, George and John longed for the same things: for their wives to be alive and healthy, for their children to be safe. The sons in the Shiner house are versions of you, not exact but quite close, and the daughter is the one that George lost. That is your mother's form in Holly Shiner made of your memories of her, with a little Marjorie Bennett influence thrown in. The man named Abe Shiner is unaware that this is a spell. All he knows is that he has a home and a loving family, and that he is happy."

The television screen blackened and the phoenix knife floated to the lap of the revasserie. Dean exclaimed, "But this isn't safe, Cherie! Winchesters are target practice for every demonic creepster that comes down the pike and here this family looks exactly like us-"

A pulse of energy went out in an orb from the blue-haired spirit, and her voice gained a deeper and more commanding inflection. "Do not insult me! I've walked this earth since time began, and no demon can withstand that push. The Shiners will never know your world of hunting and danger, for the spell will keep them within my borders and under my protection."

"How long will this spell last?" Sam asked.

"That depends on you two. They were unintentionally created, but these are your images, and in essence, _you_. Keep the knife from the boundaries of that home and they shall never return. Put it back and they shall continue until Abe dies at a ripe old age. The decision is yours. I'll involve myself no further in this matter." As she spoke, her voice returned to normal.

Sam's legs lifted him, as did Dean's. The phoenix knife settled into Sam's hand, his fingers closing around it involuntarily. The lid of a knitting basket lifted, and out soared the weapons that they had brought into the store. Both settled themselves in Dean's hands. With a sigh, the spirit said, "Now leave, children. You'll have to get some new shoes, Dean, yours were covered in oil downstairs. Keep the slippers."

"May I ask a question?" Sam asked as his legs propelled him to the door. He was turned to face the sofa, where the spirit was looking at him. "You must have seen an infinite number of pathetic stories in all of your life, Cherie. Why was it this one that got to you?"

She shrugged, a smile quirking the edge of her lips on one side. Glancing at her heart tattoos, she said, "What can I say? I'm a sucker for romance." And her magic sent them away.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

In the morning, Dean left the Starshine Motel. They had talked about it half the night, getting nowhere and getting there slowly. But the second his eyes cracked open at six, he lurched out of bed with determination to drive to the beach and hurl the knife into the waves. It was just a spell gone wrong, a spell by a spirit they had no reason to gank, and no means of doing so either. He hadn't even felt his wallet slip into his back pocket on the way out the door.

He drove the forty miles to the ocean and could not throw the phoenix knife over the side of the cliff. This had been Dad's, and though Dean was very young at the time, he remembered the gruff murmur of his father doing the incantation. Over and over and over, at a variety of coffee tables, at night when he thought Dean was asleep. Forehead tipped to the handle and eyes closed, the words went on.

You got her, Dean thought about the gorumai witch. You got her, Dad, and you never knew.

All of the incantations, the running, the hunting, the fighting, the worry, and Dad had to live never knowing he won that battle. He _had_, and Dean wished there was some way for his father to be told. But John Winchester's story was played out, and this was just a footnote.

The knife was still with Dean as the car rolled back into Archimedes hours later. This was a nice place. The cook had even caught him on the walk to the car, an omelet wrapped in tin foil to take on the road. There was no call to do that. All the motels Dean and Sam stayed in should be like this. The Starshine should be a chain, one in every town in America. Sam slept with a pillow over his head, but Dean liked the friendly glow of the star stickers.

There wouldn't be any reason to come back here, not if demons couldn't stand to be in these borders for long. Angels couldn't use this for their playground either. It was a place apart, neutral ground ruled by neither side. And the people living here had no idea how lucky they were. If the Munroe family had called this place home instead of Somewhere, Midwest, they'd still be going about their lives just fine. Anything ugly in this place happened by accident and human fallibility, not supernatural causes.

Dean was going to die hunting, like Dad had. He knew this. And he wanted something else for Sam. He should write Sam a note, an in-case-of-death note, and in it, Dean was going to tell his brother to move to this place. If not this one, some other ground shielded by a revasserie spirit. Move there and live. _Live. _Have a wife, some kids, and not live under the scythe the way they'd grown up.

It upset Sam when Dean talked about dying in the hunt. But Dean didn't know how to live any other way than this, and didn't think he could stretch to meet it. This was him, his identity. But it wasn't Sam, not in the same visceral way. One day, Sam was going to leave this world behind, and now he had a safe place to go. As for Dean, it was enough to know that places like this existed. While he was looking at all the ugly that ripped up everything, his mind would come to this place. Not _everything_.

He'd meant to drive to the Starshine, see if he could get a second omelet, but realized that he was pulling to the curb across the street from that burned-out shell. He had come here feeling violated, and now he was just sad. George and Marjorie Bennett were losers in life's game of chance, and then George lost again with the phoenix knife. Sort of his life as it should have been, sort of not since it was mixed up with Dad's, yet at least as Abe Shiner, George hadn't known that he lost.

It wasn't Dean's call to make. It was Sam's, too. But Dean got out of the car and walked to that ruined house, the knife in his hand. As he climbed the first step, the blade glowed blue and the lovely house returned. No cars were in the driveway, and no one looked to be home except for that godforsaken cat in the upstairs window.

It might not be his call, but he was making it. Because the truth of their lives was that Sam might die hunting, too. That killed Dean. He didn't even let himself think about it most of the time, but right now it was in his face and wouldn't let him turn away. Both of them might die as hunters. And here in Archimedes, in a totally weird way, both of them were going to live. Versions of their parents would live, and so would unfortunate George and Marjorie and their doomed daughter.

Tibalt would go to a local college, find a nice, normal job, settle down with a wife and have some kids. God knew what Torin had planned. Dean couldn't picture his life without the hunt; his imagination failed to go that far. He went quickly to the cellar and closed the door to keep psycho Tubby out. Down the stairs to that box, where he hesitated and then returned the knife.

Once he was outside, he leaned against the hood of his car and looked at the house. Movement caught his eye from the trees and Sam stepped out. "Hey, Dean."

Dean wanted to crack a beer, even though it was hardly afternoon. A little defensively, he said, "It just seemed like the thing to do."

"I'm not agreeing. But I'm not arguing either," Sam said, leaning beside him.

"I didn't go upstairs. What was Torin's room like? My room?"

"You had a drum set, and a stern reminder on the wall that bang time was not anywhere from seven in the evening to seven the next morning. Oh, and you're taking guitar lessons."

Dean liked that. "I bet I'm _awesome_."

The minivan turned the corner, loaded with the whole Shiner family. They pulled into the driveway and piled out, the boys running to the house and Dad yelling at them to come back and help. Both wheeled around and raced for the trunk, where they pulled out a cooler and bags. Mom unbuckled the baby girl from her car seat, a happy squeal echoing through the street and Mom laughing.

"They must have gone on a picnic or something," Dean said as the Shiners went inside.

"They volunteer at a nature park for trash duty once a month. I saw it on their calendar," Sam said. He stared at the house. "I don't know what's right here. I don't know if either decision is right. What's funny is that they're not real, but their _actions_ are real. So your wipers are still changed, even if they're gone."

Dean thought about the cook taking the time to run out with the omelet this morning. "Maybe people are still changed by interactions with them, even if the memories are no longer there."

"So maybe the best decision, not necessarily the right one but the _best_ one, is to leave it alone. No one in the community is being hurt by this. Demons, angels, nothing can target them. It just boils down to if we can live with it."

Since he'd put the knife back, Dean guessed that he was living with it. Heads bobbed about through the windows, the boys running from room to room. "Can you live with it, Sammy?"

"Yeah. But I don't think I ever want to come back here. This . . ."

"Just spit it out."

"This hurts me," Sam finished, looking steadily ahead to the house. Their parents were unpacking the cooler in the kitchen.

"Yeah," Dean said. He'd keep his eye out for some other ground shielded by one of these spirits, a place for Sam to go if the hunt didn't sink him six feet under. A map of America, that was what he needed, a map with every place labeled for paranormal activity, so he could find the places that weren't.

They got into the car, watching the images of their parents in the kitchen window for a few seconds longer. Then Dean turned the key in the ignition, and they pulled away.

THE END

Author's Note: I rented the first season of Supernatural long ago with the expectation that it was going to be dumb, and ended up eating my words many times over.

_So_ many times.

It's a (very bloody) jewel of a show, well written and beautifully cast, and though I tend to watch with my fingers shielding my eyes, I enjoy it tremendously. This is the first fan fiction I've ever done. I'm used to building my own worlds (I write fantasy and horror) so it was a challenge to step into another's creation and try to keep true to someone else's rules. But it was also a lot of fun.

THANK YOU so much for reading and for your reviews! I'm working on another one and plan to start posting it in April.


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